Stories from the Road: Ken Shamrock

They eyed up each other backstage, as macho-row guys tend to do
when they are all vying for the same thing. The glares were a good
way to suppress the spinning anxiety within. The reality was no one
knew what to expect or what they were getting into. They were
tough-dude lab rats about to be put out on live display for the
curious crowd at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver on Nov. 12,
1993.

There was one, however, who never wavered. He sauntered around with
a confident air knowing he would be there in the end, even though
what was ahead was a rather dark delta to cross. That was because
nothing ever really intimidated Ken Shamrock.
It stemmed from seeing and doing almost everything there was
available in the combat-sports world. So when Shamrock gathered
with seven other fighters at UFC 1-- with Royce Gracie,
boxer Art
Jimmerson, sumo wrestler Teila Tuli,
taekwondo black belt Patrick Smith
and kickboxers Gerard
Gordeau, Zane Frazier
and Kevin
Rosier -- he felt pretty good about taking home the $50,000 in
first-place prize money.

Instead, what Shamrock got was a piece of history; and in a sense,
he was the one who started it.

One cold call by marketing maven Art Davie began a chain reaction,
spurred by a thought that came from the pages of a magazine and
plenty of moxie. It changed everything about fighting and the
perception of mixed martial arts in this country and around the
world. In 1993, Shamrock was still in the prime of his career. His
entry legitimized UFC 1 and in turn MMA. Shamrock had no qualms
about stepping into the murky concept of no rules, no weight
classes, in a single-elimination tournament where the matches could
end only by submission, knockout, the corner throwing in the towel
or a referee stoppage due to a severe injury. He found out about
UFC 1 while he was living in Lodi, California. One of his students
told him about a flier advertising the event. Shamrock was risking
a lot, especially the brand he built for himself as the first
Pancrase
champion by choking out Japanese legend Masakatsu
Funaki. Shamrock thought he was in for easy money at UFC 1,
that the $50,000 was his.

“In the earlier days, with the skill sets and the styles, it was a
true mixed martial arts and of different styles,” said Shamrock,
who today does motivational speaking and lends his name to a few
business ventures. “That’s what I saw throughout the whole Pancrase
organization. We fought guys who were true muay Thai kickboxers.
They had good elbows and good knees. It was a good mix of the
world’s talents that we were able to compete against in Pancrase.
Things changed through time. You had UFC 1, which I was a part of.
Some sports fans understood what it was but not really the extent
of what mixed martial arts was.

“No one saw anything like we were about to do, other than what they
saw in a [Jean-Claude] Van Damme movie or a Bruce Lee movie, where
kicking and throwing and those things were used,” he added. “In
reality, you had heel hooks, leg locks, armbars and chokes; those
were things that were dangerous, and no one understood that.”

“I think history is important, and if something doesn’t have a
history, there’s nothing for people to grasp,” Shamrock said. “I’m
happy with my place in MMA, and I put it on these guys today to
know and learn the history. We’re the ones that made the sacrifices
early on, though we never considered it a sacrifice, because we
loved it. We see where MMA is today. The training is better. The
submissions are specific. I love the growth of the sport. I hate to
see guys fighting that aren’t going to have money in 30 years. They
won’t have the kind of money they need to retire on. They’re
putting their whole life into it and they’re not going to be able
to make enough money when they’re done to walk away happy. These
guys should have made enough money to retire.

“You have to love what you do to become good,” he added. “These
guys today I believe do love what they do. These guys have to go in
realizing that their bodies are their money makers. If I’m fighting
in the main event and that pulls in over a million viewers at
$49.99, where’s my one percent on that? Forget about the door,
which is over a million. Forget the merchandizing they’re selling
and pay-per-view rates coming in. You’re talking $30 million,
somewhere in there. These guys aren’t even making one percent of
that. You look at it like a business and pretty soon you start
realizing, wait a minute, you’re getting screwed over here. Why?
Because you want to fight and make $500,000 or $300,000 in a main
event. There’s a problem now, because it’s not a business anymore.
Now you’re being treated like a slave.”

When Teeth Start Flying

The Shamrock-Gracie rivalry was the first UFC blood feud in
history, its foundation beginning with “The Beginning.” Shamrock
can remember the frenetic backstage scene, with the fighters
popping pads and getting psyched, their hormones kicking up.
Everyone thought it was going to be their night. Though when the
first UFC fight began -- it featured 6-foot-5, 216-pound kickboxer
Gordeau against 6-foot-2, 415-pound sumo wrestler Tuli -- everyone
stopped what they were doing to watch.

Again, no one knew what to expect. Some believed it would be
comprised of mock fights, like pro wrestling without the
storylines, or something overboard like “Mad Max Beyond
Thunderdome,” without the futuristic muscle cars, bungee cords and
large hammers.

Shamrock knew what to expect. He was one of the first Americans to
fight in Japan. This was real pro wrestling. Gordeau wheeled around
and kicked Tuli. It was done in less than 30 seconds.

“The first fight happens, Gordeau kicks [Tuli] and his teeth go
flying,” Shamrock said. “The crowd went quiet, and the guys in the
back went quiet, too. I remember someone saying, ‘His teeth just
went flying into the stands.’ And I remember someone else saying,
‘I didn’t sign up for this.’ I was sitting with this grin on my
face and thinking to myself, ‘This is great!’ No-holds barred. It
was what I expected. One of the guys kept questioning why he got
involved with it. I don’t remember who it was, but I do remember
asking him, ‘What part of no-holds barred don’t you
understand?’

“No one believed that [flying teeth] was going to happen, though
that’s exactly what did happen,” he continued. “Guys were getting
their asses kicked. The boxer had one glove on, and the kickboxers
didn’t understand the ground. No one really knew what this was
going to look like but Royce Gracie
and myself. That was the thing about that whole event. No one knew
what to expect, not the fighters, not the fans, not the guys who
put it together. That very first fight set the tone for what we are
today.

“If we had anything less than that, I think we would have lost the
crowd,” Shamrock added. “People would have crapped all over the
event. If it would have been Royce Gracie
first, people would have booed it. If it started with Royce Gracie
and Jimmerson with the glove, they would have crapped all over it.
People didn’t have an understanding of what it was until Gordeau
and Tuli showed them. That showed that we’re the real deal. If that
fight wasn’t the first one on the card, I’m not sure what we would
have today.”

Afterward, Gracie bested Shamrock in the semifinals and then
followed that up by beating Gordeau to become the UFC 1
champion.

“For me, the whole experience was an education,” Shamrock said. “I
got an education about some of the politics that went on. My
understanding was it was no-holds barred, anything goes. Yet they
didn’t allow me to wear my shoes. I made a grave mistake in
underestimating Royce, though. I didn’t think he was going to do
much. I thought I would crush the guy. I already had experience
fighting in Japan. I thought the things Royce did were pretty
simple. I also didn’t understand the gi, obviously. I didn’t study
enough about the gi. I underestimated the fact that [Royce’s]
brother put on the show. I underestimated the power of having
control of putting rules in, taking rules out, matching up fighters
in one bracket so they would get tired when they faced guys in the
other bracket. For me, initially, I didn’t care what they did. I
thought that I would win the tournament anyway.

“Afterward, that got my mind starting to turn that it wasn’t a fair
deal,” he continued. “I felt that [the UFC 1 organizers] were
molding the event for somebody, and then I found out it was for
Royce. For me, I felt betrayed and they did all the things that
they could do to make it into Royce’s favor. They took my shoes
away, and I fought without them. Anyone who is a fighter knows what
it’s like trying to fight on a slippery surface. They handed out
the belt and the new sheriff in town, all of that garbage. It was a
great ceremony for them. I saw everything that happened, and it’s
then that I took on this revenge attitude and I wasn’t going to let
this go. I was going to go after [Gracie] and beat them at their
own game. That’s what started that first rivalry. I felt
betrayed.

“There’s still resentment there after all of these years,” Shamrock
added. “Look at the last time we fought [in Bellator]; he kneed me
in the nuts. He was looking right at me when he did it, too. That
hasn’t changed. Now we have forces around them where no one wants
to admit that they’re wrong. We have commissions, and people like
that don’t want to overturn something that was pretty blatant, but
they’re afraid to say anything because they missed it.”

Facing Death

In the spring of 2001, Shamrock had to cancel a fight against
Ukrainian Igor
Vovchanchyn, because he blew out his knee two weeks prior to
the bout. Instead, one of Shamrock’s Lion’s Den fighters, Tra
Telligman, stepped in to take his place. It was at Pride 13
“Collision Course,” and it was scheduled for March 25, 2001 at the
Saitama Super Arena, in Saitama, Japan.

Shamrock is happy he got out of there alive.

“I won’t forget that trip,” Shamrock said. “After I blew my knee
out, they said they needed a replacement and I told them I could
get someone from my camp. Tra took it on two weeks’ notice. I
wanted to work Tra’s corner, but the flight was something I’ll
never forget. We went through a hurricane, and this massive weather
storm that dropped us about 1,000 feet in a freefall. All the
baggage came flying out of the overhead compartments. People were
crying. You really thought this was the end. I really thought it
was the end.

“We took a detour to this airport up in Alaska,” he continued. “I
forget the name of the airport, but we had to make this emergency
landing somewhere off the Alaskan coast. There were no lights.
There was nothing there. There was nothing you can see. We had
oranges for breakfast and got back on the same freaking flight,
which had fire and smoke and everything else you can imagine flying
out of it. It flew out the next day, and imagine the thought
process we all had. They put us back on the same plane, going to
the same place. Talk about being afraid on takeoff. Once we get in
the air, we land in Japan and the fight has already started.

“I’m wearing the same clothes I had on two days ago,” Shamrock
added. “We barely made the fight, and I show up with my hair all
sticking up like I’m a cartoon character, as they’re introducing
Tra.”

Telligman beat Vovchanchyn by decision.

Here, There and Everywhere

MMA fans still tend to forget that the sport has not been in the
mainstream for very long. Fights during the nascent stage could be
held anywhere from a high school parking lot to a dingy, smoky,
decrepit arena. Other times, the fight could be scheduled one place
and be moved to a completely different venue -- in another state.
It happened to Shamrock.

Shamrock was supposed to fight Brian
Johnston at Ultimate Ultimate 1996 on December 7, 1996 in North
Carolina. The problem: North Carolina banned anything associated
with MMA.

“They had to take everything down, pack it up, and we went to
Birmingham, Alabama, the next day,” Shamrock said. “You had the
fighters, the cornermen and the crew to build the cage, all of the
equipment. They literally rolled the ring up into the plane. They
put the fight on the next day [at the Alabama State Fair Arena] and
gave the tickets away for free.

“That’s about as close as I ever came to asking the question: What
are we really doing [in the MMA world]? The main concern was that
the fighters had to stay focused, with that kind of a move and that
kind of a change,” he added. “In the back on my mind, I was
thinking, ‘How in the world are they going to pull this thing off?’
They moved the ring and everything, cornermen, judges, equipment,
everything we had jammed on this plane. It was actually an amazing
accomplishment.”

Shamrock choked out Johnson at 5:48 of the first round.

The Rolling Fat Man

Shamrock has been in the cage with the best in the world and has
seen many strange things, but what may trump them all came fairly
recently. At something called USA MMA “Return of the Champions” on
October 16, 2010 at the Cajundome in Lafayette, Louisiana, Shamrock
fought human bowling ball Johnathan
Ivey. Shamrock won a decision, but it was what happened during
the fight that he still laughs about.

“I remember [Ivey] as kind of a heavy guy; he does this somersault
and this twist and this twirl, and he almost knocked himself out,”
Shamrock said. “We were standing up, punching and kicking. We
separated for a few moments. Then he got up and spun and did this
somersault and rolled across the ring. I never saw anything like
it.

“I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ I had no answer for this guy
when he was crawling around all over the mat like that,” he added.
“I mean, what do you do when someone does that? This was around
2010, and it was odd. I say it was odd because today we’re so
advanced when it comes to technique and skill, far different from
the days when I started. This guy kept rolling and rolling. I
thought, ‘Did this guy lose his mind?’ I beat him and knocked down
a few times, but that move definitely caught me off-guard. It had
no bearing on the fight, other than maybe he didn’t want to take
any more punches.”

Not Taking Anything From Me

Each time Shamrock fought, venom filled his veins. He says to this
day there is not one fighter he particularly “hated.” He was an
equal-opportunity hater. Shamrock is old-school and believes anyone
with the courage to face him had to have courage to begin with.

“I had a similar experience with everyone I ever fought. I hated
them. I really did,” Shamrock said. “The minute the fight was done,
I moved on, but I did come in with the mentality that I disliked
everybody that I faced. I wanted to make sure that they remembered
me when I was done. I’ve had guys in my career that I really wanted
to mess up. One was Tito Ortiz, but
as I got older, I got better and grew up a little bit.

“Anybody who stepped into the ring with me was trying to take away
an opportunity on how I made a living and being able to have
success in life because of where I came from,” he continued. “I
came from foster homes and had no order. I grew up on the street
pretty much, and fighting professionally gave me an opportunity to
be somebody, so I would go into these fights with complete anger
and hate. I really came into every fight like that, but the minute
a fight was done, I made sure there was no animosity afterward with
the person I fought.

“After many, many years I think Tito and I put that aside,”
Shamrock added. “We’re not best buddies, but we’re good. We’re OK.
I’m different than the other guys. I don’t hang around many people.
I’m with my wife and my family. That’s what I’m built around. I
don’t have a best fighter friend in the sport.”

Shamrock said the Ortiz feud was born out of the way “The
Huntington Beach Bad Boy” treated Guy Mezger after
beating him at UFC 19 and Jerry
Bohlander after winning on cuts at UFC 18. Ortiz wore a shirt
with the words emblazoned across the front that said, “Gay Mezger
is my bitch.”

“That bothered me, and that’s where that started,” Shamrock said.
“They were grooming Tito to be the next face and they took that
fight away from Guy, in my opinion. Yeah, I was sticking up for
Guy. No one deserved to be treated that way. Tito put the shirt on,
and I told him to show some respect for the organization. Then he
flipped me off, and that’s when I entered the ring and it’s where
it started.

“There was no apology, and we did what we did,” he added. “Tito and
I helped build UFC, and there is no reason we should be pissed off
at each other. We crossed paths and let bygones be bygones. We did
that. Today, I think Tito is a very sincere and emotional guy. Deep
down, I think he’s a really good guy. When we were fighting, we had
a job to do and that was to sell the fight. It didn’t allow us to
be decent to each other. After all of that was over, we all have
painful situations to overcome and deal with. Tito, to his credit,
has done that.”

Toughest Fight, Greatest Victory

Funaki and Shamrock have a long history. Funaki taught Shamrock and
is considered family. The two fought four times. Shamrock won three
of them.

“I absolutely shut everything down when I went to Japan,” Shamrock
said. “I would go there for six months and train and be away from
the family. I lived there for four weeks, go home for a week and
came back to Japan for three more weeks. I knew the Pancrase
tournaments would be tough, and I wanted to win. Funaki won the
first time we fought. It was my second fight, and we went 36
minutes. It was brutal. He won that, but I beat him from that time
on.”

Shamrock submitted Funaki with an arm-triangle choke Funaki taught
him at Pancrase “Yes, We Are Hybrid Wrestlers 1” on Sept. 21, 1993
in Urayasu, Japan.

“After that, Funaki told me, ‘Great fight, great job. This is what
every trainer wants his students to do,’” Shamrock said. “It’s the
same thing I tell my guys, ‘My floor, your ceiling.’ You want your
students to be better than you, but beating Dan Severn by
[guillotine choke] submission [at UFC 6 on July 14, 1995] was my
greatest victory. That, I felt, made me the best, not just the best
in Japan or the United States, but I felt like I was the best in
the world.”

Shamrock remembers the pre-fight interviews leading up to the
Severn fight.

“Dan is not the best interview,” he said. “It’s hard to get Dan.
All of the media were talking to me and I was answering questions,
and I remember Dan getting up and walking out of the room. To me,
that was totally disrespectful what he did. I looked at Dan, and as
he was walking out, I remember saying, ‘I was just going to beat
you. Now, I’m going to hurt you!’ There was a woman in there and
she started screaming, and I said, ‘You know what? You can count on
it.’ I ripped his head off. I choked him out in about a minute and
10 seconds (actually it came at 2:14 of the first round). I didn’t
see how Dan could beat me. He tried to shoot on me. He couldn’t
take me down. He tried to shoot [on] me a second time, and I caught
him in a guillotine. I nearly ripped his head off, and he
tapped.

“I do have to say I don’t think the older guys get the respect that
they deserve,” Shamrock added. “That’s because the UFC is in two
parts. You have the [Bob] Meyrowitz time, which were the beginning
days, and now you have the [Frank and Lorenzo] Fertittas in the
second half. The second half doesn’t want anybody to know there was
a first half. There’s nothing focused on the early years, because
they don’t want people to recognize that they didn’t start it.”